Performance Augmentation of V- Bladed Savonius Wind Turbine

Abstract

Fossil fuels, although an essential source of energy, have been a major cause for the degradation of the environment. The negative impacts created by these fossil fuels have forced mankind to adopt alternate measures for energy production. Renewable energy resources have been optimal in replacing the conventional energy sources as they are environmental friendly. Wind energy has been harnessed effectively all over the world for the production of electric power. Wind turbines extract the kinetic energy of the wind and convert it into mechanical energy and further convert it into electrical energy using generators. In this work, we have compared the performance of the Savonius turbine with five different blade designs. Initially, the flow around the different blade designs has been analyzed through computational fluid dynamics. Subsequently, the turbine blades were fabricated using light-weight materials like Aluminium sheet metal and tested in the low speed wind tunnel. The performance of the turbine has been characterized by measuring its rotational speed (in terms of RPM) and the amount of torque produced at different wind velocities. Based on the wind tunnel tests we were able to conclude that among the five blade designs, the V-shaped blade with an interior angle of 60 ̊has the highest coefficient of power of 0.09 at 12.6 m/s.